Preps, Savannah GA. opening soon

My name is Rich McGowan, I am the prep sports writer at the Savannah Morning News in Savannah, GA.

My wife got a new job in Toledo, OH, and my last day on the job here is Friday, Aug. 6. With the opening of football season around the corner, I imagine the bigwigs will move quickly to get someone in here.

A few job-specific details (as I experienced them):
--Immediate coverage area includes 20 football-playing high schools (though sister papers primarily cover Effingham County/South Effingham and Bryan County/Richmond Hill).
--Football season will likely include some TV work and maybe some radio work as well as weekly online webcast and blogging.

--Pay, for me, is in the LOW 30s with little to no overtime. I worked many hours I did not get paid for, as does everyone these days. This football season will be even worse as the Savannah public schools will be playing a lot of Thursday and Saturday games.

--I cannot say enough good things about the sports staff here. This paper has quality, hard-working guys. The only problem is we don’t have enough of them.

--The preps scene is Savannah is a mixed bag. The public schools are good in basketball (though have a tendency to flame out in the playoffs) and bad in football because they play in a higher classification than enrollment dictates and athletics has a very small budget. The private schools are generally competitive in a lot of sports. Savannah Christian football and girls basketball went to the state championship game last year in Class A. Savannah Country Day football is a team on the rise that plays in a wide-open system that is fun to watch. Calvary Day has a very strong baseball team, very strong in girls basketball and getting better in boys basketball too.

Any more questions, feel free to PM me. I’ll try to answer, but the next few days will be very busy. My wife was offered the job today and starts in Toledo on Monday. Oh, and she’s eight months pregnant. The next few weeks will be exciting.